Refreshing data on the disk

[AstroSkipper]

29 minutes ago, UCyborg said:

Cool, but are they used regularly?

Of course, not! The last years, only from time to time. All for nostalgic and rather sentimental reasons!  It's just contemporary history.  And I have always been an Atari fan. 

[D.Draker]

On 4/21/2023 at 10:19 PM, AstroSkipper said:

Unfortunately, a lot of problems. No space for additional PCI cards. Quality of IDE-SATA adapters, lack of space, compatibility problems, IRQ incompatibilities and so on. I've already bought IDE-SATA adapters and expansion cards, but I'm happy if my old computer doesn't need any further modification. This cheap electronic stuff has burnt me out before. I am not really a friend of such adapters.

Never got any troubles with the German DeLOCK IDE->SATA Adapters.

Need my German store link ? I can send it to you via messages.

There also was some made in Austria, but very expensive.

[AstroSkipper]

3 hours ago, D.Draker said:

Never got any troubles with the German DeLOCK IDE->SATA Adapters.

Need my German store link ? I can send it to you via messages.

There also was some made in Austria, but very expensive.

Thank you! So far all is good. All my four IDE hard disk in my Windows XP computer are in an excellent condition. And I have two Dawicontrol SATA PCI cards on reserve. But I hope I do not have to use them. I think I would even rather change the motherboard.

[jaclaz]

15 hours ago, D.Draker said:

Never got any troubles with the German DeLOCK IDE->SATA Adapters.

There are also good quality ones from Addonics:

https://www.addonics.com/product/intro/31

but they are not German[1], they are from Taiwan, cannot say if they count as Chinese.

jaclaz

[1] in this context German should actually mean China or Taiwan made anyway but chosen and sold by Germans, example:

https://www.delock.de/produkt/62510/merkmale.html?setLanguage=en

(Made in Taiwan)

[D.Draker]

On 4/23/2023 at 11:58 AM, jaclaz said:

1 - There are also good quality ones from Addonics:

https://www.addonics.com/product/intro/31

but they are not German[1],

2 - they are from Taiwan, cannot say if they count as Chinese.

jaclaz

[1] in this context German should actually mean China or Taiwan made anyway but chosen and sold by Germans, example:

https://www.delock.de/produkt/62510/merkmale.html?setLanguage=en

(Made in Taiwan)

1 - Thanks, will keep in mind.

2 - From what I had been taught at school/academy/university - was Dutch, even Japanese for some time and then British ! Not sure about now.

[1] - Hey, but they were. Looks like not anymore, and many thanks for bringing it to my attention !

I own such IDE-SATA adapters and also many Addon-cards from Germany (they all have the famous green Siemens board).

NO "Made in Taiwan" shown on them.

Since you can post links to the shops , I think I also can , here's the place where I bought them and many other parts.

https://www.computeruniverse.net/en/p/90745130

I honestly don't know who the owner of the shop is ! Perhaps you will help us to find out ?

All I know - the store is German. All parcels arrive from Western Germany. (not DDR, or ex-DDR or whatever they called it in English).

[jaclaz]

1 hour ago, D.Draker said:

All I know - the store is German. All parcels arrive from Western Germany. (not DDR, or ex-DDR or whatever they called it in English).

But does this guarantee that they are not communists?

Computeruniverse is (from their about page):

https://www.computeruniverse.net/en/page/cuinfo

a German company with office in Friedrichsdorf, but founded in Bad Homburg and later moved in Friedberg, since 2006 became part of Burda Consumer Tech Group, so I would say "very" German, but that is just the shop.

What you seem to be missing is that DeLock is a brand, not a manufacturer:

https://www.delock.com/delock/index.html

Essentially what they do is either find (good) existing products on the international market and brand them or find (again internationally) reliable manufacturers and have them produce with their brand particular items.

The (sometimes a little, sometimes a lot) markup you pay for their products is mostly about their ability in choosing good products and testing them before reselling them under their brand (for the more common items) and for (AFAIK very good) support (and extended warranty on many items, declarations of conformity).

Only to give you an example, do you believe this:

https://www.delock.de/produkt/62966/merkmale.html?g=1449

to be very different from these:

https://www.sybausa.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=933

http://www.iocrest.com/index.php?id=2162

jaclaz

[D.Draker]

On 4/24/2023 at 12:16 PM, jaclaz said:

But does this guarantee that they are not communists?

Computeruniverse is (from their about page):

https://www.computeruniverse.net/en/page/cuinfo

a German company with office in Friedrichsdorf, but founded in Bad Homburg and later moved in Friedberg, since 2006 became part of Burda Consumer Tech Group, so I would say "very" German, but that is just the shop.

What you seem to be missing is that DeLock is a brand, not a manufacturer:

https://www.delock.com/delock/index.html

Essentially what they do is either find (good) existing products on the international market and brand them or find (again internationally) reliable manufacturers and have them produce with their brand particular items.

The (sometimes a little, sometimes a lot) markup you pay for their products is mostly about their ability in choosing good products and testing them before reselling them under their brand (for the more common items) and for (AFAIK very good) support (and extended warranty on many items, declarations of conformity).

Only to give you an example, do you believe this:

https://www.delock.de/produkt/62966/merkmale.html?g=1449

to be very different from these:

https://www.sybausa.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=933

http://www.iocrest.com/index.php?id=2162

jaclaz

Of course it doesn't guarantee . But commuinists or not, the store staff is disciplined and works quite well under the wise German guidance . I wonder if maybe @AstroSkipper knows more about the store and the real owner.

Thanks for the information about DeLock, I never paid that much attention, now I know. What I noticed - their prices went UP, when the assembly line moved to Taiwan !

And yes, you're right ! They look similar. But that doesn't guarantee both of them aren't a forgery/knock-off. That's why I prefer to shop at the German www.computeruniverse.net/

[AstroSkipper]

1 hour ago, D.Draker said:

I wonder if maybe @AstroSkipper knows more about the store and the real owner.

OT: Unfortunately not! I know this shop but I have never ordered anything there. BTW, that a shop is a German one says nothing about the quality of offered hardware, which in most cases is of Asian origin anyway nowadays. For old, already used hardware, I prefer eBay or eBay Kleinazeigen, and for new hardware, Amazon and some real shops in my surrounding.

Edited April 25, 2023 by AstroSkipper
Update of content

[UCyborg]

Slightly OT (continuing from mentioned old Atari computers and old disks), seems the oldest tech still at home are the two ISKRA car battery chargers (POKO 10 and POBI), from the 80s if not older. I know POBI still works and the other one should as well. Until last year, we still used the freezing cabinet from Gorenje that must have been at least 37 years old. But the rubber or whatever material covering the pipes deteriorated to the point that it wasn't fully cooled anymore.

The people that might still remember its exact age, they're long dead. A gloomy remark, none of us will work as well in 40 years.

Edited April 26, 2023 by UCyborg

[D.Draker]

On 4/25/2023 at 5:20 PM, AstroSkipper said:

OT: Unfortunately not! I know this shop but I have never ordered anything there. BTW, that a shop is a German one says nothing about the quality of offered hardware, which in most cases is of Asian origin anyway nowadays. For old, already used hardware, I prefer eBay or eBay Kleinazeigen, and for new hardware, Amazon and some real shops in my surrounding.

I have to disagree. Plenty of computers are still produced in Western Germany. Take me as example, I don't have any asian-made mobos, I don't even have asian adapters. Even my HDMI cables are Philips made in Belgium . Gold plated with armoured coating and protection from being chewed up. I don't know about your local shops, but Ebay and Amazon are definitely communists, some might not like it. I'm typing this from a Fujitsu Siemens, Made in Germany and looking at a German Fujitsu monitor. Even the mouse and my KB are Siemens. 

OT. I'm a bit tired of computers. I'm currently building a very realistic layout of a bombed German city from Pola items (made in W. Germany). I'm trying to reproduce the terrible sufferings of poor Germans. All figures are ready made by Preiser.

EDIT: Forgot to say, I'll also have various SDKFZ, made by the Austrian Roco and hand-painted by our local pro-painter.

 

Edited April 27, 2023 by D.Draker

[jaclaz]

Well, JFYI, I have a few thin clients, good, ol' Fujitsu Siemens Futro S200/S300 (re-adapted as router/firewall) and - curiously enough - they have a TR5670 motherboard, manufactured by by TECO Electric and Machinery Co., Ltd:

https://www.teco.com.tw/fa/about.htm

which sports a (crappy BTW) Insyde BIOS:

https://www.insyde.com/company/fast-facts

with a Transmeta Crusoe 800 processor, Transmeta was an American fabless company, processors were actually manufactured, you guess, in Taiwan, by TSMC (part of the Acer group).

We are talking of hardware some 20 years old, so it is not a particularly recent trend to outsource the actual manufacturing to Taiwan (or China).

jaclaz

 

[AstroSkipper]

6 hours ago, D.Draker said:

I have to disagree. Plenty of computers are still produced in Western Germany. Take me as example, I don't have any asian-made mobos, I don't even have asian adapters. Even my HDMI cables are Philips made in Belgium . Gold plated with armoured coating and protection from being chewed up. I don't know about your local shops, but Ebay and Amazon are definitely communists, some might not like it. I'm typing this from a Fujitsu Siemens, Made in Germany and looking at a German Fujitsu monitor. Even the mouse and my KB are Siemens. 

OT. I'm a bit tired of computers. I'm currently building a very realistic layout of a bombed German city from Pola items (made in W. Germany). I'm trying to reproduce the terrible sufferings of poor Germans. All figures are ready made by Preiser.

EDIT: Forgot to say, I'll also have various SDKFZ, made by the Austrian Roco and hand-painted by our local pro-painter.

 

If "Made in Germany" or another imprint suggesting German production is found on electronic components, this does not mean that the part was produced entirely in Germany. The production costs in Germany are far too high. Therefore, most of it is produced abroad and perhaps finished here. Purely German, electronic components are certainly rather rare. You shouldn't fool yourself about that. The end consumer is just getting screwed anyway.

[jaclaz]

Yes, at the very least, you should go through these three steps (though here they are listed about metal detectors, should be applicable to other devices as well):

https://kts-electronic.com/en/made-in-germany.html

Still the issue about the possibility of having to deal with  ex-DDR communists and not integrally German ancestry of employees would remain unsolved.

jaclaz

 

[UCyborg]

Looks like the disk is getting wonky.

I didn't run any special program to go through empty space, just went and duplicated some files to fill most of it I think, assuming it will catch those sectors and remap them. Guess not. More bad sectors. Bleh, I don't know, I'll try to make an image of it in the near future, then see what happens after zero-fill or just writing the image back to it. I have a feeling it has run its course.

[AstroSkipper]

2 hours ago, UCyborg said:

Looks like the disk is getting wonky.

I didn't run any special program to go through empty space, just went and duplicated some files to fill most of it I think, assuming it will catch those sectors and remap them. Guess not. More bad sectors. Bleh, I don't know, I'll try to make an image of it in the near future, then see what happens after zero-fill or just writing the image back to it. I have a feeling it has run its course.

I would backup all accessable data and perform then a low level format. Then you can check whether the pending sectors have been remapped or not. Exactly that I did successfully in the past using a low level format tool from WD (I don't know its name at the moment) and Spinrite 6.0.